The Tea Party Can Win The Left
It's true: my latest at The Daily Caller sounds farfetched.
But does it sound any less farfetched to say that establishment Republicanism can gain the support of any liberals worthy of the name? Again and again, the corporatist GOP bankrolls “centrist,” “pro-business” candidates who become slaves, never masters, of identity politics. And again and again they brutally fail. Lest we forget, the ranks of the Tea Party were first swelled by just this perversity.
The cruelest possible fate awaits establishment Republicans who still hope to seduce liberals by promising slightly more take-home pay than whatever Andrew Cuomo can get you — especially in an era when the punditocracy is a-tingle at the prospect of a presidential race in which Andrew Cuomo replaces Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket.
Instead, Republican hopes hang on the ability of Tea Partiers to follow through explicitly on the great implicit promise of their movement. Political liberty increases, not decreases, human flourishing.
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Dec '10
Re: The Tea Party Can Win The Left
The TEA Party Movement ought to be able to draw the support of Frank Capra Democrats, the ones who believe that outsized interests -- Big Government, Big Labor and Big Business -- should not run the USA as a cabal for their own interests.
The TEA Party may be able to attract the soft Lefties who believe in human flourishing through freedom and independence. The TEA Party has to make the case to them that local communities are better positioned to help themselves than the bureaucrats in Washington or the State capitals.
However, the folks on the Left who believe in Socialism or who are just fine with their public-sector unions grabbing as much as they can without regard for the health of the country are beyond reach. The former are convinced that human flourishing is best served by reducing everyone to equality of outcomes, and the latter are too focused on getting and keeping whatever they can get to give a thought to the common good.
May '11
Re: The Tea Party Can Win The Left
The tea party movement can influence non-liberal independents but will always be despised by those who vote Democratic. I also think the people affiliated with tea party organizations are going to remain outside the tent of mainstream Republican activism. At least in Charleston SC and West Palm Beach, Florida, their focus for now is mostly on state and local issues, which is good.
Apr '11
Re: The Tea Party Can Win The Left
James Poulos:
No one on either side disputes that. The problem, for those on the left, is that liberty results in unacceptably wide disparity between the richest and the poorest. It's just not fair.
Republicans will win when they learn how to make speeches that can convince those on the shorter end of the stick to cast off their ressentiment [sic, look it up] and realize that in real terms, they too are better off with growth-promoting liberty, even if 40% of the wealth is in the hands of the top 2% or whatever.
Here's a slogan for the New Man who has overcome ressentiment and no longer cares who is richer as long as he has a good job and security: "Let *them* eat cake - - - I'm happy with my Bud Lite and a Big Mac"
Mar '11
Re: The Tea Party Can Win The Left
James,
I enjoy your work, but your dead wrong here.
If the Tea Party were a philosophy class exercise removed from political realities of the day, and if its only message were one of financial stability through sound economic policies and the proposition that liberty increases human flourishing....then you might be right. Especially because "liberals worthy of the name" already believe those two things. See John Stuart Mill.
But on the ground, this plays out much differently. In part this is because many of today's "liberals" aren't worthy of the name, but in part because the Tea Party is also largely a socially conservative movement and the message is not merely an economics 101.
You have to reframe the question this way: What Progressive is going to vote against Barack Obama to elect the sitting chair of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress, Michele Bachmann?
The Tea Party has a chance to win moderates and independents, not the movement Left. That's where we'd better put our energy and hedge our bets.
Re: The Tea Party Can Win The Left
Crow's Nest: James,
I enjoy your work, but your dead wrong here.
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The Tea Party has a chance to win moderates and independents, not the movement Left. That's where we'd better put our energy and hedge our bets. · Jul 7 at 11:20pm
Well, CN, my thought is that right now there are a lot of liberals -- liberals 'by default' and otherwise -- who just aren't very locked in to the movement left. It is true, I agree, that progressives are very unlikely to be inspired by what I think the Tea Party can offer liberals -- insofar as there really is a difference between progressivism and liberalism: the latter is a lot more uncomfortable with statism than the former.